The 49ers’ selection of defensive end Kentavius Street amounts to their banking a player for 2019.

Street tore his ACL in a pre-draft workout for the Giants and had reconstructive surgery.

He will not be ready for training camp and unlikely to contribute this season, as we explained in our draft medical concerns article. Street will end up on the Non-Football Injury list. Depending on his rehab and how the 49ers’ season is going, he could be activated late in the season season to gain some experience.

This amounts to the 49ers trading this year's fourth-round pick for what they considered higher value the following year.

The 49ers have had a history of choosing players with knee ligament injuries. Local reporters even called it "Team ACL" with seven players taken between 2013 and ‘16 who had a history with the injury.

It has not worked out well in the past, but that was under a different general manager (Trent Baalke). Now that John Lynch has taken a similar path, there may be some local scrutiny, but a new GM is not worried about what the previous one did.

Based on the publicly available information regarding Street, this could turn out to be a great pick for the 49ers — but not until next year.